Arts of Heroism
by Dim13
Summary: Set 4 years after the Events of Code of Claw, mostly told from the perspective of an unnamed first-person narrator. Gregor seems to slowly adapt to normal life in Virginia. However, the memories of the underland simply won't go away. And then there's this one student... (Gregor x Luxa)
1. Chapter 1 - A certain boy

_Hey there! Just wanted to say this is my first fan fiction ever, so please, constructive criticism would be nice (I have quite some experience with original fiction, as in works that are 100% owned by me, and while this is usually a positive thing, but I am really scared of writing other people's characters because I don't want to write them wrong. Also, English is not my first language and so please, if I make mistakes or use clumsy wording, tell me). The Idea for this simply plopped into my mind after I read the last book in the series. It just itched in my fingers to write it out. This should mean something as, I repeat, have never written fan fiction before!_

_This is a fan fic of Suzanne Collin's Underland Chronicles. It plays 4 years after the events of The Code of Claw and is told from the perspective of an unnamed, 16/7 year old Narrator of ambiguous gender. (I'll try my best to not use gendered pronouns for the Narrator; If I NEED to use pronouns, I'll use the officially accepted "them" as a gender-neutral pronoun btw. I want to keep their gender up to the reader :D)_

* * *

**Chapter 1 – A certain boy**

I finally arrived in Virginia. It was a long flight. How long I don't know, but it was long enough for me to draw several pictures of what I saw when I looked out of the window. The following day was going to be the first day of the student exchange program. I came from a German Realschule. I always was pretty good at English so I thought I'd try this. After all, I've never been outside of Germany. I've always wanted to go to another country, too. I got up, adjusted my glasses, took my notebook and my backpack and got out of the plane. I met my host parents, got the rest of my stuff and we eventually drove to their home. It was a nice apartment, not too bad I guess. It even had a piano. They also had a room, ready for me to move in. But anyway, that's not really important. That day was pretty boring after that actually. Dinner was nice though.

The next day, I went to school, of course. I decided to wear my most favorite, yellow hoodie for this special day. When I arrived, I got an entire lesson to get known to the others. There were, of course, nice people, not-so-nice people, boring people, interesting people… However, I especially noticed one boy, sitting alone in the back left corner of the classroom. I immediately noticed that he was the odd one out of the bunch and probably didn't have many friends. He seemed to be daydreaming. I sighed. I have been just like that, when I was younger. People always teased me because I was different; because I liked art. I eventually became quiet and pretty shy. To this day, I still am to a certain degree. I felt kind of sorry for him.

After the introductory part of the period was over, I sat down next to him. At first, he didn't even notice I was there, but eventually, he looked over to me. Apparently he was a bit surprised to see that someone actually decided to sit next to him. However, when I smiled, he looked away again. I sighed internally.

Eventually, the lesson was over and we were allowed to go to the school cafeteria to eat breakfast. I waited until I was alone in the classroom with our teacher. I asked him who this boy was. I just couldn't get him out of my head. There just was something about his… Something about him made me curious. He told me that his name was Gregor and that he was one of the quietest students in the class. Apparently, he was not a bad student, but also not especially good. And he also didn't seem to have many friends. A few, yes, but not many. Mh.

After this I went to the cafeteria. There I saw him again, sitting all alone, eating his breakfast and, apparently, daydreaming again. I promptly decided to sit down next to him, again. This time, he noticed me immediately. I already expected him to look away, again, so I simply asked: "Hi, what's your name?" He sighed. He told me his name: Gregor. Just what our teacher said. I smiled and told him my name and that I was the exchange student. He simply nodded and looked away. It seemed like this was his way of saying "I tolerate your presence."

After I finished eating, I got my notebook out and started drawing something out of boredom: An angel, from a behind-below perspective, losing a few feathers, to be accurate. I took especial effort in trying to make the pose look as dynamic as possible while keeping the proportions natu- wait. That's not important, sorry. What IS important is that my drawing was slowly grabbing his attention. After a short while, I noticed him peeping over to my drawing. I couldn't help but to chuckle a little. This seemed to have startled him a bit and he apologized. I just told him that it's okay and smiled in a friendly way. He was quiet for a second… and smiled back.


	2. Chapter 2 - Friendship and Power

_Hi there! Here's the Writer! First of all, thank you for the positiveness until now! I appreciate it. I decided to upload chapter 2 now. So yeah, here it is._

_Oh and by the way, PercyJacksonFanaholic, Yes. the narrator's art will indeed be part of the story, later on. :)_

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Friendship and Power**

Eventually, Gregor and I became pretty close to each other, despite him still being rather quiet. He had some secret, I just knew it. We started hanging out together, first at school and sometime later even after school in town. Just the two of us and sometimes one or two additional friends of his. I didn't really bother making friends with my other classmates, as they quickly lost interest in me; just how people always do. Being the quiet kid with a taste in art isn't really all that interesting, is it? It's not that I don't have other interest; Art is just what I like the most. Gregor didn't seem to bother, though. He actually seemed to be quite happy to not be all alone, anymore. He once told me that I reminded him of an old friend and classmate of his, called Larry. He told me he liked drawing pretty much as much as me. I found this kind of amusing.

While we hung out, I started noticing that his behavior was a bit weird, though. Once when he saw a roach after I invited him to my host parents' house, he didn't try to squish it or something, no. He instead caught it, talked to it and said that it really should watch out more where it decides to find food. He gave it small crumbs of the sandwich I made and gave to him and released it. It was a bit odd, but I quickly forgot about it, even though similar things happened afterwards.

Eventually, he invited me to his home. I happily accepted. His parent's place was not too shabby. A nice farm near the city limits. His family was also pretty nice. Besides his parents, he also had two sisters. One of them, Margaret, was 6 or 7 years old, I think, and Lizzie, his other sister, was around 12 or 13. They frequently called Margaret "Boots". This must've been a nickname. I thought it was a pretty cute nickname. Nice girls… however, just as with Gregor… everyone in this family also had this mysterious aura. They also had some kind of secret, maybe even the same one... The only one who didn't seem suspicious at all was Margaret, but since she was so young I thought that maybe, whatever was going on, she didn't know it. Maybe it was something that happened in the past and she simply forgot? Eh.

We had lunch together. His mom made Casserole. It was delicious to say the least. During lunch, we talked a bit. I told him about Germany and my home city. I also laughed about the fact that streets in Germany and Europe in general are usually not in such straight lines as in America, which I always found kind of weird. In America, you could drive along a linear street for hours, while in Germany you had to move your steering wheel almost every second because of the curvy streets. I admit this was a pretty unusual topic to have a conversation of, but interesting none the less. Gregor's mother then said that they once lived in New York, and that they knew this linear-street thing all too well. When I asked them how life in New York was, she kept quiet. I assumed she probably didn't hear me; I usually spoke in a pretty quiet voice. I shrugged and started eating again. I was simply too polite to ask again; I didn't want to accidently make her angry by repeating the same question over and over whilst she understood me perfectly, the first time.

Once we were done eating, we decided to play some video games together. I was told that back in New York, they barely had money for such luxuries but now that they were in Virginia, they could afford more stuff than before as both of Gregor's parents now had quite well-paid jobs. Gregor's sister Margaret wanted to play with us too, but she was a little too young for some of the games we picked out. I found her eagerness and her "Come oooon, pleaaaaase?" pretty adorable to say the least, and it was a bit sad to see her do such a pouty-face when we had to said no to her. However, Lizzie was able to play some of the games with us.

We've played some fighting games and tactical RPGs together. Out of us three, Lizzie probably won the most often. She had really interesting and complex tactics. She really was very smart, seriously. But, even though I and Gregor lost so often, it was fun. After we finished playing, I got my notebook out of my bag and started to draw a bit. Both Margaret and Lizzie begged me to draw them too, so I complied and also started doodling cartoony versions of the two with several expressions. That actually was very fun. Eventually, I looked at the clock. It was around 7:30PM. I got up and stretched a bit. My muscles got a bit stiff from all the sitting.

"Oh, it's this late already…? Hey, Gregor, I think I should go now. I don't want my host parents to worry about Me.", I said. Gregor smiled and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Well then! Let me come with you. It gets pretty dangerous around that time, around here." I nodded. Sounded like a good Idea. Better than walking alone, I guess. I said goodbye to everyone and went outside.

We would need to walk through almost half the entire city to get to my host parent's apartment. This walk didn't seem to take so long when the sun still was shining. Now it seemed to take hours. I silently sighed. I didn't want to be this late. 'My host parents might get worried' I thought. I called them that I was on my way home, but I still was worried. Little did we know this was actually the least of our problems.

Gregor suddenly stopped and looked around. "…We're not alone… Did you hear that?" he asked me and had a mildly worried look on his face. I shook my head. "No. Hear what? What are you talking about?" I asked. I looked around. We obviously were alone. I could see no one besides us on the street we were walking on… at least for a while. Then suddenly, I heard steps.

A man in a black hoodie came around the corner, from a back alley and walked towards us. At first, I thought it would be better to simply walk away, but Gregor stopped me. Then I noticed that this man had something in his right hand… a knife. And he was pointing it towards us. I froze in shock; I never really was able to keep cool in stress situations. Especially in conflict situations, my brain simply ceased to function properly. I tried to move, but my body simply refused. I couldn't do anything but stare at the man. He demanded money. We didn't have any money with us, even Gregor told him so. He told him so in a surprisingly calm fashion. The man demanded money again; in a much louder voice, this time. Again, he said we didn't have any with us; Louder, but still calmly. This was when the man lost it. He stretched the arm with the knife towards Gregor. But once the Man took a step forward, something surprising happened. It all happened so fast. With incredible speed, Gregor ran towards the man. Said man was just about to slash at him, but Gregor simply dodged and knocked the knife out of his hand. Before the knife could even touch the ground, he punched the Man one time into the stomach and one time into the neck. The man then fell to the ground. I blinked in surprise; what did just happen?! Did Gregor just singlehandedly knock out a grown man? A grown man with a weapon, nonetheless?!

He checked his pulse. "Mh… so I didn't kill him. That's good." he silently said to himself. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked as he looked back to me. He was greeted with the most surprised and confused expression I ever expressed in my entire, short life. My Mouth was so widely opened that it almost felt like my chin could touch the ground. I eventually was able to close it again. "H-how…?!", I asked in confusion, still gawking at him like an idiot. Was he some kind of superman or something?! He scratched the back of his head and nervously chuckled. "W-well… It's a long story. I'll explain it to you, another time. Let's just focus on bringing you home, for now. Okay? Haha…" he asked with a nervous smile. I blinked, still in a state of confusion, but I nodded.

The very next day was a Saturday. I could barely sleep that night because I kept thinking about what Gregor did, this evening. This was by far the most fascinating and, at the same time, most confusing things I've ever witnessed in my entire life. I spend a good deal of that night drawing some of the poses he did in that short fight. It still was kind of unbelievable. Eventually, I was able to fall asleep. I was woken up around 10:30AM. My host parents wanted to buy some things that day, so I was alone for a while. After I made breakfast for myself, I decided to practice a bit on the Piano. I wasn't that good at music in comparison to drawing, but I thought I was pretty okay. I played for quite some time, but then someone rang the doorbell. I got up went towards the door and opened it. It was Gregor. His sudden appearance kind of surprised me. I didn't actually expect him to visit, today.

"May I come inside?" he asked me. "Sure, go ahead." I answered. I let him inside, went into my room and we both sat down onto my bed. He scratched the back of his head. "Yeah… About yesterday…" he said. I chuckled. "Yeah, I thought this was actually pretty cool, even though it was a bit… confusing and unexpected, to say the least! It was like a superhero movie!" I said with a smile. He smiled back, although a bit forced.

"T-thanks, but yeah… I feel as like I owe you an explanation." He said. I shrugged. "I don't need any explanations." I said. "But if you insist, you can explain if you want to." He nodded and sighed. "Well… I should warn you, though. This whole thing may sound… crazy to you." He said. I looked at him with a questioning face. What could possibly sound so crazy? Yeah, he singlehandedly knocked out a grown man with a knife, but couldn't anyone do this with some boxing lessons or something?

For a moment, it was quiet… But then, he started telling me the most incredible story I've ever heard.

* * *

_Yeah. And this is it, for now!_


	3. Chapter 3 - Fantastic Stories

_Hi there! Dim13 here, again! I just want to thank you for all this positive feedback, it's a bit overwhelming to be serious! :O_

_ Tytonic: Well, wow. When I read your review I kind of was blown away. I really love YOUR fanfic, so needless to say, I feel honored! :O (Also wow, now I really feel as if I'm under pressure because of the high expectations! Note to self: Think and proofread. A lot.)_

_ Sky of Stars: Well, it's really nice you like it! :D By the time of the end of chapter 2, the narrator and Gregor should have known each other for around half a year. In my opinion that is pretty much enough time for them to trust each other, considering that they've hung out together for pretty much every day until that point. Not to mention that probably, after this whole knock-the-criminal-out-like-superman thing Gregor probably felt kind of pressured to tell them, mh? Oh and no no no, I haven't actually published a book, yet! I am planning to, but I currently have put all my ideas until now into my non-commercial works. In my free time, I work on a webcomic (I still need to redo a lot of the old pages, the pacing was really bad back then and I've also gotten better at drawing. It looked so bad back then xD) and I also am working on a non-linear work of fiction, which is (or will be) devided into several stories, comics and even games. (I work with the RPG Maker Engine; either VX, XP and 2K(3).)  
_

* * *

Chapter 3 – Fantastic Stories

He told me about many different things that happened 4 years ago. About New York City, about his father's disappearance. He told me about a place called the Underland, a kingdom called Regalia. He told me about humans with pale, almost translucent skin, silver hair and purple eyes. He told me about fliers, crawlers, nibblers… About gnawers, spinners and shiners. He told me about prophecies and battles. About a plague and about war. About being a rager. He told me about those who died and those who lived. Those he hated, those he killed, those he liked and the one person he loved.

The entire story, even in its short form, took around two hours to tell. I sat there with an open mouth and widened eyes. I didn't know what to say. Many, many questions came into my mind… however… one single question was the one I thought of the most: Why… Why did I believe him? Was it his serious face? Maybe the sorrowful look on his eyes? I don't know. I simply believed him. However, I wasn't sure what to say, so I kept quiet… This whole story… It was so unbelievable, yet told with so much emotion.

He apparently took my reaction as a sign that I didn't believe him. He rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt. I saw scars. Some looked like as if they were inflicted by claws, others were big and round. I looked down to the scars and back at his face. My eyes still were widely opened. Now there was no doubt for me. I believed absolutely everything. Every single word. I simply nodded. He rolled his sleeve back down and nodded back at me. We kept quiet for some time. I looked down, and eventually back at his face.

"I believe you, but… This whole thing… It seems so unreal… All this information in one sitting, it's a bit overwhelming…" I said. "Not to mention it seems like as if it's straight out of a high-fantasy novel…" I nervously laughed after saying this. Gregor did, too. "I know." He said. "That's why I said you might think I'm crazy." He forcefully smiled with a pained look in his face. I couldn't possibly imagine through what sort of emotional pain he must have been through. "You're… a good listener." He said. Yeah… I always was a good listener, yes… but I always had problems when I was supposed to comfort people; I just am scared of making things worse and things usually became very awkward. I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to support him the best I could.

This whole situation was simply too new to me. Finding out that there's an entire underground kingdom underneath one of the most famous cities of the planet… That it's still a secret and that it isn't known to most of the world, yet… Finding out that actually intelligent, talking animals exist… I can't describe this feeling. It felt so surreal. Maybe I thought that this was a dream and the things he told me were simply parts of said dream… But I didn't wake up. Everything was true… And that's something I had to accept. Needless to say, some parts of my worldview shattered that day.

I imagined what fighting giant rats must be like. I personally never found rats all that threatening or scary, so it was a bit hard for me. I even had a pet rat back in Germany, Pepper, and she probably was the sweetest and cuddliest pet I've ever had in my entire life. Well, the cuddliest pet besides my budgie, Charlie. But yeah, that's unimportant, sorry.

The next few days were rather awkward to say the less. During School, Gregor became pretty quiet and we didn't have many conversation topics. We simply just hung out. After school, though, he often came over to my host parent's to talk to me. He told me more of the Underland, more about his friends, more about how much he misses them; especially the ones who died and… More about a girl named Luxa, who was the queen of Regalia, and how much he still loved and missed her. He also told me about the bat; or should I call him flier, who bonded with him; Ares. He told me how he never really got over his death. He still had nightmares, even to this day. I silently nodded. I understood that this must've been horrible for him.

We often would visit each other to talk about the Underland; quietly of course, so that neither his parents nor my host parents would hear anything. While his stories sometimes were kind of sad, he seemed to be happy to have someone who would listen to him and understand him… or believe him for that matter. The Underland seemed to be a very interesting and fascinating place… Even though it was never in my intention to ever visit it, the things Gregor told me about most certainly gave me inspiration for some drawings and paintings. One day, his sister Lizzie caught us talking. She silently scolded her older brother for telling me about the Underland; especially because I personally haven't experienced anything firsthand.

"You can't just simply tell your friends about the Underland! What if they think you're lying? Or worse, what if they think you're crazy?! They could send you to the mental hospital or something! And what if mom hears you?! You know what she thinks of that place!" I actually had to calm her down, myself. She almost started to hyperventilate! When I told her that I already knew for a while, that we have talked a lot of times already and that I believed everything, she was actually pretty surprised, at least according to her facial expression. I smiled at her. "No worries, I'll keep it a secret. As long as you don't tell your parents we talked about the Underland, okay?" I asked with my, like usually, friendly face. She blinked at me, nodded and then smiled. "Sure, but only if you allow me to join! Although I don't have quite as much to say as my brother, I'd still like to talk about my own experiences!" I looked at Gregor and shrugged. He shrugged back. "Sure why not?"

She told me about how she was mentioned in the last prophecy they heard of. How she was called a "princess". She told me how she was supposed to solve a code. She told me about the other code breakers. And she told me about a rat; ahem, excuse me, I mean gnawer; named Ripred, who she really liked. I remembered some things that Gregor told me a while ago; He told me that a rat named Ripred trained him. Funny, how much his personality seems to differ, when told from Lizzie's perspective. She and Ripred seemed to have had a good relationship.

Eventually I had to ask something. In every single one of their stories, their sister Margaret, or "Boots", appeared. I wondered if she could remember anything from that time. I personally still remembered quite some things of when I was 2 or 3 years old, myself. Both of them shrugged.

"I don't know and honestly, I'd rather not find out. If she indeed remembers, she probably only remembers the things from a good light. If not, we shouldn't tell her about it. What if she remembers all the negative things that happened? Now that she can comprehend what exactly happened, we'll probably just make her sad or scared. Traumatized girls are not really something we currently need." Gregor said. I nodded. I completely understood where he was coming from.

We had another few of these conversations, a couple of times. All these stories were interesting, heartbreaking, a bit gross and overall fantastic to listen to. These things were all things that I really enjoyed imagining; but on the other hand, I never wanted to visit this place. Like, ever. It sounded dangerous and, honestly, I wasn't made to endure such danger. I am thin, I am weak, I am a bit of a coward and, most of all, and I absolutely hate any form of conflict. I already sometimes get emotional breakdowns when arguing with my parents about what to eat for dinner on Sundays. This place would probably be the death of me, or it would at least scar me forever; both emotionally and physically...

* * *

_Aaaaaand, yeah! That's it for now!_


	4. Chapter 4 - New York City

_Hey guys! First of all, sorry for the relatively long wait! I've been pretty busy over the past month, both with personal projects and with school. Now, things are getting better so here's a chapter! But first of all, here are some doodles of several interpretations of the narrator that I did when I was bored. It's a pretty quick doodle, so it's not perfect :P. **i1155 . photobucket (dotcom) / albums / p549 / Dimensional13 / Doodles%20private / Interpretationsofthenarrator_zps139e23f8 . png** (To view it, delete the spaces and replace the (dotcom) with a dot com.)  
_

_ Sky of Stars: My webcomic is a science-fiction/fantasy comic called Re-DRAKE. But I really don't recommend reading it quite yet because of some of the very old pages. I still need to redo them as the pacing and storytelling was baaad and the drawings were even worse :'D.  
_

_Well anyways, here's the chapter!_

* * *

Chapter 4 – New York City

I almost forgot that this was actually a part of the student exchange program! Eventually, School was over for now and we now had 3 weeks of holidays until it would start, again. I personally was given 2 additional weeks because I was supposed to do something that was part in my exchange program: I was supposed to visit New York City! I was allowed to bring some friends, who then would also be given these 3 additional weeks of holidays, I was told by my host parents. I also was told that, if I had been 18 years old at the time, we could have gone all alone. However, I wasn't so I had to choose an adult who accompanies us. For a moment, I was lost in thought. 'Should I ask Gregor and his sisters to come with me? Should I maybe ask his father to act as our supervision? I mean, what if something happens? I mean, I doubt that something will happen, but still!' I thought. I mean, I didn't really have many other friends around here, didn't I?

Eventually, I asked him. At first, he was rather hesitant about it. He wasn't sure, but he asked his parents anyway. To both our surprise, they actually agreed. I wondered if they only said yes to not seem suspicious or weird or anything. After all, they didn't know that I already knew about the Underland. And we didn't plan on telling them that I knew, anytime soon.

When the day came when we were supposed to go to New York, I decided to wear my favorite, yellow hoodie again and already had all my stuff packed into my rucksack. Besides taking some snacks, chips and some bags of candy with me, I also decided to hide an aluminum baseball bat inside of it. I've used it before, when I was playing baseball with some other kids during sports lessons in school. We were supposed to bring our own, and I had to buy one myself. New York is a big city, and there are many criminals too, so… in case something happens, I thought that it would be better if I took something that I can use to defend myself with me… However, that thing would become rather useless anyway if I started to freeze in fear, again… But still, bringing a weapon for self-defense was better than doing absolutely nothing to prevent such situations.

I said goodbye to my host parents and went outside. Gregor, his sisters and his father were already waiting in a van. I opened the door, went inside and sat down next to Gregor in the back row of the van. His sisters were sitting in the middle row, while his father was driving. I looked over to Gregor's father. "Uhm, excuse me? Do you already know where we'll be staying? I mean, the student exchange program does cover the costs of the hotel, doesn't it?" His father nodded. "It's located near the Times Square. Apparently it's not bad. At least that's from what I've heard." he told me. "We'll get three separate rooms one for me, one for the girls, and one for you and Gregor." I nodded. This sounded interesting, for sure.

"By the way" he said and looked over to us. "If you want, you can walk around in the city on your own. I mean, you have a map, don't you? All I want you to do is call me, should something happen or should you get lost. And do me a favor and stay together." Gregor looked at him for a moment. He seemed surprised. He probably didn't expect his father to allow us to walk around freely in the city. Maybe his father thought that Gregor wouldn't go to the Underland as long as I would be around, because he would want to keep his little secret a secret. Because I didn't want him to know that I already knew about it, I simply smiled and nodded. But even if hadn't been there with him, I doubted that Gregor would've returned to the Underland, anyway. He once told me how sad he is that he never got a letter from his love, Luxa, even though there was a way through his neighbor. I told me that this was probably proof that she forgot about him and that he probably should, too. I felt sad for him.

We drove for around 8 hours. I've been playing on my handheld video game console for around half the time. During the other half, I simply doodled something into my notebook. The drive was rather uneventful and boring to say the least. I almost fell asleep. I guess Lizzie and Margaret both actually fell asleep themselves, for some time! I wondered why we didn't just take a plane. Well… at least the view was nice… sometimes. Then there also was this one incident when we almost got into a car crash because of some other, very idiotic driver. Ugh, I hate such people.

Well, anyways. We eventually arrived in New York City. It was already dark when we arrived, but I still was pretty amazed. New York City really was really nice-looking at night! All those lights! Definitely nothing in Germany could be comparable to this! Eventually we arrived at the hotel. It was okay. Not quite as good as I expected, but decent. At least the location of the hotel was nice. It was near some sights and famous landmarks.

Our rooms were pretty okay, too. Mine's and Gregor's had two big beds and a flat screen TV. His father's had one single bed and his sister's was pretty much like ours. We also had a bathroom, two chairs, a table and two bedside tables, of course. There even was a gaming console. It was an older model, but it sure was nice. The beds were, by far, the best thing. Or at least I thought so. I was tired after that long ride. I just wanted to go to bed. Gregor pretty much agreed on that with me.

The next morning, I felt refreshed. I haven't slept that good for a long time. Gregor on the other hand looked horrible. He had a terrible nightmare and he pretty much looked like one, too. He had been awake for hours, already, when I woke up. I kind of felt bad… Taking him to New York City probably wasn't such a good Idea, now, was it? "Err… Gregor? Do you want to talk about it?" I asked him. Needless to say, I was pretty worried about him. He shook his head. "No, it's okay, really. Don't worry." He told me with a weak smile. I wasn't entirely sure about that, though.

We all met in the dining hall for breakfast. Even his father and his sisters looked pretty worried when they saw him. "Gregor, are you okay? You look tired." asked Margaret. "You probably should go back to bed after breakfast, don't you think?" added Lizzie. They both had a rather worried look on their face. Again, Gregor shook his head. "No, no. It's fine, really." His father silently sighed. "If you say so. But don't burn yourself out, okay? ", he said. Gregor nodded. "It's okay, don't worry." he said, once again. I internally sighed. In my opinion, he shouldn't lie just to make others worry less about him… On the other hand, I am just like this. I don't want people to worry about me; I simply don't want to be a burden to others.

Anyways, breakfast was delicious. I had a piece of toast with butter, a cheese omelet and bacon. Yum, I couldn't have done it any better myself. Everyone else also seemed to have enjoyed their meal. I got up the first.

"So, yeah…" I said as I grabbed my bag pack and took a map of the city out of it. "Where should we go first? Should we go sightseeing? Or do you know a place you want to visit first?" I asked. The first one to answer was Margaret. "Can we visit Mrs. Cormarci? I haven't seen her since I was little! I barely remember her, but I want to see her again!" she said, and looked at me with a begging face. Mrs. Cormaci? Gregor told me about her… She was that one neighbor that they told of the Underland. However, I feigned ignorance to keep up the facade. "Mrs. Cormaci? Who's that?" I asked and looked at Gregors father. "She's an old neighbor of us. A very nice woman. And, you know, I have no problem with that. You can visit her. I'll stay at the hotel." Margaret's face beamed with joy. Lizzie also seemed quite happy. "But remember, should something happen, call Me. And remember, stay together." his father told me. I nodded.

After breakfast, we were allowed to go. Margaret and Lizzie still smiled like Cheshire-cats. Even Gregor smiled. They must've really liked that woman. We walked for around 15 minutes when we stopped at an apartment building. I looked at Gregor. "So this is where you lived?" I asked. He nodded. We went to the door and Margaret rang the doorbell. She wanted to do it the most, so we let her do it. An older lady opened the door. When she saw Gregor and his sisters, her lips formed a warm smile.

"Well, if this isn't Gregor! And Lizzie! And Boots, is that you? Or should I call you Margaret, now? My, you've all grown so much!" she laughed. "What brings you back to New York?" Gregor smiled. "Hello, Mrs. Cormaci!" Margaret laughed. "Well…" Gregor said. "A friend of mine kind of made this possible." He chuckled and looked at me. I smiled back. "Oh! I can't say that I've seen you before! Who're you? One of his friends from Virginia?" she asked and gave me a warm smile. I introduced myself. "And, yeah. Sort of. I am not originally from Virginia, you should know. I'm just an exchange student from Germany. But it's nice to meet you, Ma'am!" I responded, while trying to sound as friendly as possible. She smiled back at me. "It's nice to meet you too. Well then! Why don't you come inside?" She asked. We all nodded and went inside.

We went into her kitchen. "Why don't you have a seat?" Mrs. Cormaci asked us and sat down. We all smiled and did just that. "So…" She asked smiled. "Why don't you tell me how your life in Virginia has been?" Gregor shrugged. "It's okay. I have okay grades, Lizzie is the best student in her grade and Boots is, even though she's older now, still as quirky as ever." He said. "Sometimes still a bit TOO quirky for her own good!" He laughed. Pretty much everyone in the room started laughing. Well, except Margaret; she pouted.

"It's just like how you wrote it in your letters!" laughed Mrs. Cormarci. Gregor and Lizzie suddenly made some very surprised faces and looked at each other. "Letters? What Letters?" asked Lizzie. Gregor shrugged. "I don't know, Liz." They looked back at Mrs. Cormarci. "We… didn't write any letters."

* * *

_And that's it. To be serious, I had some slight problems writing Mrs. Cormarci. I don't write older people very often, so I tried to do my best. :'D_


End file.
